OK, irgendwie hab ich den Blog schon seit laengerem aufgegeben...

Aber das wollt ich doch jetzt schon mal wieder rausposaunen wo es mich und Marty in den naechsten Wochen so ueberall hintreiben wird! Unten seht Ihr unsere Route durch die USA die wir vom 27.6.09-14.07.09 abfahren wollen. Danach geht's dann noch ne Woche an den Strand in North Carolina und dann hoffe ich, dass ich viele von Euch am 8.8.09 auf unserer Hochzeit sehe!!!

Ein paar Highlights auf dem Weg werden wohl sein:

Davis
Sierra Nevada
Death Valley
Las Vegas
Zion NP
Bryce Canyon NP
North Rim Grand Canyon NP
Monument Valley NP
Natural Bridges NP
Canyon de Chelly NP
Gallup
Houston
New Orleans
Savannah
Wilmington

Gesamtstrecke 6469km
Fahrtzeit 72 Stunden

Bis bald in North Carolina oder in Deutschland!!!

Oh schade, ich merk grad dass ich die Karte von Googlemaps garnicht hier reinstellen kann.

Dann klickt halt mal eben auf den Link:
ROAD TRIPPIN' USA

It's been a long time since I blogged here. I kind of gave it up, I admit. But this last weekend is really worth to share. I thought.

So it was a 3-day-weekend (Memorial Day) and we, Marty and I, had had plans for a long time to go up to Mendocino to visit some friends. However, a couple of days before the weekend they the friends remembered some other commitments and we couldn't go up there. When we thought about alternative plans, Marty recalled the Kinetic Sculpture Race that we had heard about during spring break while we were travelling with Jakob and Marty's parents in Humboldt County (way, way North...). We also decided we wanted to go camping. And take the dog. So on Thursday we packed the car and borrowed tent, cooker, and sleeping bags... After a five hour drive we arrived in Ferndale on Friday evening where we wanted to camp at the Fairgrounds.

Saturday morning the car wouldn't start because we had used the lights to build up the tent. After the guy from AAA had fixed this problem we just hang out the whole day in Ferndale. It's a really cute, little, Victorian town and the shops and people are very nice, too! Oh, and for dinner we went to a very nice restaurant in town (since we only spent $10 a night for the tent, we decided to treat ourselves with good food the whole weekend!)

The next morning was another culinary highlight at a little cafe where Marty had seen a sign: "Biscuits and Gravy". The portions were so big that we couldn't eat for the rest of the day. But it was delicious.

After church we drove up to Eureka where we would finally see the kinetic sculptures for the first time. Well, we had met one team on the campground on Friday night. They had left early Saturday morning with their sculpure "I-SCREAM" to start the 3-day-race in Arcata. So on the second day they were all in Eureka and had to show to the public that their sculptures were able to swim. The sculpures have to go through sand dunes, on the road, and in water. It was so much fun to watch them first in the water and then later we would see them spread out through town and on the highway and everywhere...

We hang out in Eureka and went for a walk on the beach in Samoa (probably named after the long sandy beaches and not the big lumber mill!). We actually did quite a bit of walking over the weekend and the nature up there is really beautiful. Especially, when one lives in the middle of the desert (Davis). We came back to Ferndale in the early afternoon and went to the same restaurant again for dinner.

On Monday was the big highlight for the weekend: the finish of the Kinetic Sculpture World Championship 2008 in Ferndale. We broke down the tent, packed the car and took our new camping chairs to the Main Road near the finish line. There we waited with a few hundred other spectators for the sculpures to arrive.

And then they came...

There were also some crazy, crazy people around!

And our neighbours from the campground made it, too! I scream, you scream, we ALL SCREAM FOR ICECREAM!!

Because it makes people happy...

What a great weekend. So relaxed. SO RANDOM!

I'm sorry... but Pink Oyster Mushrooms, Martha Wicks, and Pinot noir are just three of many reasons why I have NO time for updates this quarter.

Sorry.

I know, I know, I'm 3 months late now with my blog. That could mean I was too busy studying or maybe I just had too good times. Both I guess. Anyway there doesn't seem to be a lot of time in between. Anyway I'd like to post some pictures again...

A few more pictures from our trip to Russian River valley (where I lost my camera charger):

The Beach up in Russsian River:

The Redwoods:

And the beach again:

It must have been the next weekend when we went on our first DEVO trip for this year, to the Santa Cruz mountains. Very good times! And great wines down there.

First winery we visited:

First picknick, with legendary meatballs:

Our house for the weekend, two blocks from the beach and which used to be a brothel for sailors!

Let's get the party started!

First night of games (more the drinking kind of games):

Some culinary action:

If you can call Ricecrispies a culinary experience:

And later that night:

And LATER that night:

And much LATER that night:

And even much later that night:

By the way our "night" had started when we got to the house around 5pm and by 11pm pretty much everybody was in BED!!!
But that gave us hardly enough sleep to get to our first winery in the morning (at 8am if I remember correctly). BONNY DOON! The guy is quite a character and talked to us for two hours about all his ideas from cristallization (putting earth or wine in a petri dish, letting it cristallize and interpret the pattern!) to octagonal plantations of vines with cristals in the poles to distribute energy and light!

Off to Mt Eden, a winery overlooking the Silicon Valley. Incredible views and very nice wines! Quite affordable too, considering one of the most expensive areas in the US.

Interestingly I seem to be sleeping in the most random places on that day...

Back to our beach house to watch the sunset. Great day!

That night we had a LOT of Lasagna:

and another American delicacy for dessert: S'mores (derived from "I want s(ome) more!!!). Basically sticky marshmellow and chocolate on two biscuits.

And here the chefs, D-Wayne and his wife:

This night the games were much different! More on the concentrating, intellectual side of games.

OK, I'm gonna stop here. Hopefully I won't wait another month before the next post. Goodbye y'all!

So this was probably one of the best days this quarter! After a great night with Scot and Leila we woke up at Matthias' house in the middle of the vineyard right next to the Russian River in Guerneville. There was only one method to get us ready for the day which was CHICKEN WINGS AND FRIES for breakfast...

Tamara, a grad student here at the department who knows Sebastian's dad from Germany and has good contacts in Russian River, had organized our appointments for the day.
The first was at a winery I had been before and which name I have forgotten. But I know it's very beautiful out there, the weather was gorgeous, we were the only visitor early in the morning, and they offered little appetizers from their own kitchen with the wines. Very nice start in the day...

The garden and the winery...

From there we drove to Porter-Bass Vineyards where we wanted to meet with Tamara and Beatrix as well as another group from Davis (Jenny, Wynne, Marty, and Tom!).\

It is probably one of my favourite places in California and Luke, Elena, Dirck, and Susan were once again very welcoming and soo nice.
They showed us the vineyard and it freaked me out how big the pigs were just 6 months after I had seen them as piglets!!!

Yumm!!! Next time I hope I get to eat them!!!

Talking about Biodynamics...

We eventually went inside and had a very nice, 3-hour lunch with some of the best Pinots and Chardonnays I had in a long, long time...

After that wonderful afternoon we (Wynne, Tom, Jenny, Marty, Matthias, Sebastian, and I) went to Matthias' house to hang out for a while before we went to the beach for the sunset and then to Bodega Bay for dinner (with the unfriendliest waiter EVER, but even that couldn't spoil that perfect day!!!)

November 2nd, the day after our Riesling tasting, I started a roadtrip with Sebastian and Matthias. Sebastian had rented a car and we had the long weekend (Fri-Sun) in front of us.
We took the nice windy road over Lake Berryessa to get to Silverado Trail. The weather was perfect and Napa Valley had the most beautiful fall colors that weekend.

A short stop at Opus One:

The first appointment we had at Vineyard 29 with JP, a good friend who graduated last spring and was working the harvest there. It's all very impressive with a big gate and a long private driveway. The bottles are something around $200 the piece (!!!) and everything looks like MONEY! It's obviously owned by some rich guy from Silicon Valley. In addition to that it's the cleanest winery you will ever get to see. Including, of course, the brandnew caves. They go that far to say they sell their wooden fermentors after five years because they don't think they can control the spoilage organisms after a couple of years (one should know that these tanks are about 3 times more expensive than stainless steel and that they can be used, in the old world at least, for many decades!).

Vineyard 29:

Sebastian, JP, and Matthias talking about press and sorting table (they have 14 people on the press during harvest!):

From inside:

The cave:

Tamara organized our next appointment at a winery in Calistoga called Littorai. It's the complete opposite concept to Vineyard 29 and interestingly their wines play in the same price range. We found an old house, a dirty road, a gate but not even a sign for the winery. Ted Lemon, the owner, grew grapes, mainly Chardonnay and Pinot noir, for a long time. He has about 30 years of experience with his own land and with the area. Until last harvest he vinificated his grapes in a rented winery in Napa Valley. Right now he is in progress to build his own winery (with a very interesting hay bale construction method). He took a lot of time to show us his biodynamic composts and his new building and just talk about what he feels is important to make a great wine (and great wine he makes!).

At Littorai:

The composts:

The building:

Ted, Matthias, and Sebastian:

After at least 1.5 hours with at Littorai we went on to drive up to Matthias in Guerneville.

We chilled out for a while with his roommates and then went to Healdsburg where we met with Scot and Leila, two good friends of mine, for Burgers and Beer!!!

After a few pitchers we moved on to a fancy-shmancy bar where a coworker of Matthias was working:

And then we got "one for the road" at Scot's before we left back to Guerneville (Matthias stayed more or less sober that night!)

It would have been a great night...

...even without the "wheel changing action" at 3am for some random gut who didn't have a car jack. But somehow this made it even more fun!!!

During the first week of November, my good friend Sebastian from Geisenheim flew in and came for a visit. I had announced to do the weekly VITIS tasting with him and present German Riesling and Pinot noir (Spätburgunder). Sebastian came with a whole case (12 bottles!) of wine and Matthias drove out from the Russian River valley.

We had a great tasting with two flights of four wines:

the first flight were three Pinots and one Riesling= all from Sebastian's winery "Weingut Fuerst"

the second flight were Rieslings of different vintages and "Qualitätsstufen" from all over Germany, and then

Chik, the winemaker here at the dapartment also donated a "1969 Schloss Schönborn Cabinet" as a little treat from the wine cellar.

Greg (VITIS organisator), myself, Sebastian, Matthias, and Jesse (the other VITIS organisator this year) after the tasting:

Later that night we went out for dinner...

...had more wines with the other Germans...

...and more fun...

...before we fell asleep.

The day after the Pink Party we went to the Bridge School Benefit, a music festival organized by Neil Young and his wife for a school with disabled children. It was in the same location as the other concerts and Matthias joined us (Wynne, Naomi, and I) this time.

We were still quite hungover from the night before, but hanging out on the lawn and watching bands playing ALL ACCOUSTIC was the perfect thing to do!

By coincidence !!!...

...we also met Ben and his girlfriend who are good friends with Kerry and both of whom were at the Pink Party the night before.

It was definitely a great day and the concerts were fantastic. We saw performances by Tom Waits and Kronos Quartet, John Mayer, Tegan & Sara, Regina Spektor, Metallica, and, of course, Neil Young. And again, all accoustic which was the best thing.